#toh criticism

[antispopausandstuff]

i respect Dana for the work she had to do for TOH to be at least somewhat complete.

but i still question her decision to have Amity work on herself / go through a redemption arc and not put any emphasis or attention on how Willow and Gus would feel about Luz dating her.

like, if one of my best friends was just suddenly dating someone who used to bully me and only just recently stopped ( when it wasn't even their own choice to do so, btw ), but has barely talked to me since, i'd be pissed off with both of them.

Willow said that what Amity did didn't automatically make them friends, but that it was a start of something. but TOH just didn't pay attention to that afterwards, didn't think about how Willow and Gus would feel about Luz dating Amity, and just had Amity invite herself over to Willow's house and then they're... friends again? and she's suddenly friends with Gus, too?

i wouldn't say that Willow and Gus would never approve of their relationship, but i will say that they, especially Willow, should've been allowed to have their reservations and feelings about the matter.

i just feel like Luz and Amity dating should've had some consequence, in terms of Luz's friendships. explicitly because she's friends with people Amity had, at least, done nothing to help when it came to Boscha.

is it really so much to ask that Amity didn't get off essentially scott-free? i love Amity, i really do, but it always felt like the show focused more on why she was the way she was instead of how that impacted others. or, if it did focus on the impact, it was more about how it impacted Luz.

this would be a complicated situation in real life, and almost no one would've reacted as Willow had, not even bringing up her grievances and essentially just prioritizing Luz's happiness over her own mental health, and Gus doing the same by association.

Lumity's cute, sweet, and taught me a lot about myself and my personal relationships. but it would've been really nice if their relationship had more of an impact than just on themselves, because Amity had already done that prior to them ever getting together.

Willow and Gus deserved to have spoken their thoughts on it, even be angry with Luz, instead of just put to the side.

[mad-not-disappointed]

one of my favorite tropes in fiction is the existential crisis. specifically when a character has to grapple with the realization that they're not human or "real" or otherwise not what they thought they were all their life.

so it's really frustrating that so many stories fail to explore this at all when there's so much potential for it.

a while back, i had made a post about how Hunter from TOH accepted his identity as a clone waaay too quickly, even though it should have theoretically destroyed his entire worldview. the only thing he seemed to be worried about was a. getting caught by Belos and b. being judged by his friends.

i would have liked to see him grapple with this new reality a lot more. what does it mean to be an artificially engineered copy of someone else? how much of your personality is really you? will you ever be a real person or are you doomed to forever be the equivalent of a really good AI, made in the image of someone else?

of course, TOH was strapped for time but i still think they could have slipped a few of these existential questions in there, instead of just making Hunter scared that his friends will find out.

and now, the same thing has happened with TADC. already i'm not a fan of the whole creative AI revelation because it makes no sense, but it's even worse that none of these people are absolutely reeling from the realization that they're not real people.

they're just sad for a minute and then just move on?? how??? if i realized that i was nothing but a copy of someone's brain and the real me was out in the real world, living their life, i would be ripping my hair out. i would have abstracted almost immediately.

while halfway into TADC, i made a post about Kamen Rider Kabuto and how one of the characters turns out to be the very monster they were fighting, monsters that absorbed the identity and memories of the people they killed.

i don't remember exactly how the realization scene goes but it was definitely a lot more effective and completely broke 13 y.o me's brain.

and that's what this trope is supposed to do. it makes you question what was real, it makes you go back and search for hints that this character wasn't who they thought they were. it makes you lay awake at night, thinking about how this character's reality was so thoroughly destroyed.

idk man, i really hoped that these shows realized the implications of what they were writing. you can't just say "this character finds out that they're not real" and NOT explore the psychological implications of that.

[toh-hot-takes]

Why doing anything with Belos in the fandom so taboo?

[anakinsimp]

Belos and the Collector could have been the coolest duo of villains if one were not nerf and become stupid and the other were not a retcon, making them good

[mangaloversolar2000]

Please please please talk about how racist toh is sometimes. Especially with how they stop focusing on all their characters of color besides Luz.

I’ve been wanting to make a post about this for so long (especially cause I'm a POC and I’ve talked about it in other posts, but never as the main topic), so thank you for giving me the perfect opening.

The Owl House has a racism problem — not in the loud, obvious way, but in the very familiar “progressive show that wants the aesthetic of diversity without the structural commitment to it” way. And the way the show treats its characters of color makes that painfully clear.

✦ The sidelining of every POC character who isn’t Luz

People love to point to TOH’s “diverse cast,” but the reality is that almost every character of color besides Luz gets pushed aside the moment the story needs focus. Gus, Willow, Skara, Mattholomule (I know Skara and Mat weren't really side characters like Gus and Willow but I think they still deserve to be mentioned) even Hunter (coded as a character of color in many ways through narrative parallels and casting) — they all get arcs that start with promise and then get abandoned or minimized. They become emotional support furniture for the main plot rather than characters with their own narrative weight.

It’s the classic pattern: POC characters are allowed to exist, but not to be centered.

And when a show markets itself as groundbreaking representation, that kind of sidelining becomes even more glaring.

✦ Luz’s representation feels shallow compared to Anne from Amphibia

This is where people get defensive, but it’s important to say: Luz being Latina often feels like a checkbox rather than a lived identity. Her culture barely informs her worldview, her relationships, her conflicts, or her growth. It’s referenced in props and a few lines, but it never becomes part of the story’s emotional core.

Compare that to Anne from Amphibia — a Thai American protagonist whose cultural identity is woven into the narrative in ways that feel natural and meaningful. Anne’s heritage shapes her values, her family dynamics, her arc, and even the themes of the show. Her culture isn’t a sticker slapped on for representation points; it’s part of who she is.

With Luz, it often feels like the writers wanted to say they had a Latina lead without actually writing one.

✦ And then the show shifts almost entirely to Lumity

This is where the sidelining becomes impossible to ignore. Once Luz and Amity’s relationship becomes the emotional center of the show, every other character — especially the characters of color — gets pushed even further into the background.

Gus and Willow’s arcs evaporate. Their development stalls. Their screen time shrinks. They become props for Lumity moments rather than characters with their own stories.

And look — queer rep is important. Lumity meant a lot to a lot of people. But the show’s increasing fixation on just Luz and Amity came at the expense of everyone else, and the characters who paid the highest price were the POC characters who were already underdeveloped.

It’s not that Lumity shouldn’t have existed. It’s that the narrative balance became so skewed that it reinforced the exact pattern marginalized fans are tired of: white-coded characters get depth, while characters of color get sidelined.

✦ The uncomfortable truth

When you put all of this together, you get a show that:

Centers a “diverse” protagonist whose cultural identity is barely explored

Introduces multiple POC characters only to abandon their arcs

Shifts the narrative almost entirely to a white-coded romance

Uses characters of color as emotional support for the leads

Wants the praise for representation without the narrative commitment

This isn’t unique to TOH — it’s a widespread issue in “progressive” Western animation. But that doesn’t make it any less disappointing.

✦ Luz deserved better. The POC cast deserved better.

And fans deserve better than being told to be grateful for surface-level representation.

If Amphibia could write a culturally grounded protagonist with nuance and depth, TOH had no excuse. Luz could have been that. Willow could have been that. Gus could have been that. But the show chose not to invest in them.

And that choice speaks volumes.

[writingraccoon]

No offense to any moots bc I'm not talking about you (and ik ik don't get mad about stupid shit online but I am TOH's number... probably #4 hater so I gotta talk about it)

GODDDD I HATE OWL HOUSE FANS I HATE THEM SO MUCH AND I HATE THEIR UTTER LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE SHOW AND OF THE CRITICISM LEVIED TOWARD IT AND THE FACT THAT THEIR WHITE GAY 15 YEAR OLD ASSES CAN'T ACCEPT ANY CRITIQUE OF THE SHOW

Saw a video complaining about villains that get redeemed and their redeemed personalities are neutered and pacified versions of who they once were and people (rightfully) were commenting that this applied to Hunter and the FUCKING TOH FANS said shit like "🥺 I don't understand why people don't like Hunter. They just don’t understand his writing"

FIRST OF ALL. Me criticizing the way a character is written doesn't mean I hate the character (I quite liked Hunter before his lobotomy), and you also CAN'T JUST SAY THAT??? It is not a reasonable defense against critiques to say "yeah well if you understood it you would actually love it" like girl no I get what the writers were trying to do. I just STILL think it's bad. I know that that's a revolutionary concept for you but try to think about that

Also a bunch of people going "Well it says a lot about you if you preferred Hunter before he 'recovered'" (he didn't? He just realized that he was traumatized rather than believing everything was fine). So many problems with this. First of all, no the fuck it doesn't, you can like characters better at any stage in their development and it doesn't mean you're, what, an abuser? Be serious white baby. Secondly, I don’t prefer Hunter when he was miserable, I just miss when he had a distinct and realistic personality. Ngl TOH literally could have just kept his sense of humor/sarcasm and it would have been better

Also while we're here I want you all to remember that in the flashforward at the end of the show they gave the black side character (who they deeply underutilized the whole show) the fucking KILLMONGER CUT. Wow such thoughtful design I'm glad the toh team cared about all the characters the same.

[stanlunter]

Damn I wanna write a damn post about how The owl house is based on culture appropriation, the Slavic culture specifically

But lately it's lowk hard for me to write big essays I really hope I'll make anyway it tho

[yaemicoco]

Am I understanding things wrong or did Dana just go back to working on her brand that is owned by Disney after shitting on them and saying how bad they are? Like how else is she making the TOH graphic novel then? I guess Disney is bad and you shouldn't support them unless you want to make additional content for your poorly managed cartoon huh